15/24 Season Three, Episode 12: Fast Food For Thought- Scarecrow and Mrs King

Back at the hotel again, we find Lee and Amanda exiting the elevator.Lee: Amanda, that was very good work. Really, it was.Amanda: Oh, well, come on… …That was just spur of the moment stuff.Lee: Spur of the moment? It was natural, spontaneous…Amanda: Look, I’m just glad you got out okay.Okay this can’t be a coincidence, this has to be intentional! err maybe?! This reminds me (and maybe you too?) of another scene were Lee and Amanda have just exited an elevator! In Over the Limit.Amanda:… You were really really good. How did you learn how to do that?
Lee responds to Amanda’s question: Ohh I don’t know….…It sort of comes out naturally.Amanda:Oh it was good!…it was really good.Lee points at Amanda: you were pretty good yourself…
And on it goes! but.. Interesting how Amanda was excitedly complimenting Lee, and now Lee is taking the initiative and praising Amanda’s skills on the job without any prompting! Plus.. interesting that in both scenes, the concept of ‘natural’ comes up – Lee is a natural.. Amanda is a natural.. together – they are a natural.. and yes.. this is ‘much more natural’ ahem..

I digress…. and back to Fast food for thought! Back to the back of Lee and Amanda.. ahem..Lee: Well…Amanda (pointing to the vial): What is that stuff?Lee: I don’t know. Eddie was a real pro. His pictures led me right to it. [Not bad for a ‘flake’ take it back Billy! I guess he’s a flake because we don’t get one of those ‘he saved my life once’ stories! lol.. ]
(They pause outside Lee’s room.)Amanda: Hmmm…Lee (continues): The lab boys’ll have it analyzed in a matter of hours. [Lab boys huh.. you can have girls in Labs too thanks very much!
Call me crazy but umm the lab boys can’t analyse it until you give it to them. Umm why exactly have Lee and Amanda returned to Lee’s room with the vial?! Makes no sense.. ]Lee unlocks his door, and puts the vial into his shirt pocket as he starts to walk into the room; You can call me crazy again.. but I wouldn’t put a vial full of a possible chemical weapon in my shirt pocket like that!
Lee stops.. uh oh.. the room has been tosssed over..
Actually, it looks suspiciously like Eddie’s room when that got tossed – just a few strategic pictures changed.. a different camera angle.. I think it’s the same. LOLWell, it’s enough to distract me anyway! LOL…
Lee moves further into the room and re-holsters his gun. Amanda leans over in the doorway to peer into the bathroom.Uh oh… we see next to the wall a timer counting down.
5… 4… 3…Shot cuts to Lee, looking down at the floor.
And lookin good.
He looks toward Amanda..Lee rushes toward Amanda shoving her out into the famous hallway.. yelling: : Amanda! Get out of here!
He closes the door.. and things go Boom! (my ode to Burn Notice! BN fans will get it!
Lee jumps on Amanda covering her from the blast.Whoa.. lots of debris.They sit up and look toward the destroyed doorwayAmanda looks at Lee..Lee turns to meet her eyes..Uh oh.. things just got serious!
They look around still a bit stunned.. Umm lovely to jump on Amanda and protect her and all – but you do have vial of some potentially powerful chemical weapon in your shirt pocket there Lee.. if it’s not all over Lee it would probably be all over Amanda! lol.
End scene.
Poor Foxrun Hotel.. they’ve had a bad (fox)run of crime in their rooms of late

We find Lee and Amanda walking through the hotel lobby in a bit of a hurry.Lee: You have to get packed. Someone’s starting to play hardball, and that’s when you pick up your mitt and go home.Amanda: Yeah.[hmm interesting, she’s not fighting it.. what do you make of this everyone?]
Francine joins them in the lobby..she fills in Lee (and accidentally Amanda lol! 🙂 ) on what their industrious little worker Billy has found.. apparently the vial contained a potent poison called Scion – which was developed by the army.. at Fort Detrick of all places.
[So Umm how did they analyse it so fast? 2 seconds ago Lee had it in his shirt pocket and it was being blown up? and I thought as Lee and Amanda rushed through the lobby here they were quickly getting Amanda out of there because the bomb had just gone off and it was getting dangerous? help??
It makes no sense.. yet again!
It feels like the bomb in Lee’s room was added short notice to add some excitement to this rather dull part of the ep.. (thus my rocky horror picture show meme). Anyway, all this leads them to suspect Bendix.. man.. are you following this plot? such a tricky one this one. so super complicated. Poison in vial by Bendix. super simple to figure that one out. Now that is some extra special sauce right there!! LOL..Lee finishes off saying lets go find out why Bendix is mixing up a batch..
So what happened to Francine not knowing Lee and Amanda? I guess suddenly none of that matters? Hmm whatever.. they all head for the door..

On to Marvellous Marvin’s HQ.. and upstairs in the factory, we find Marvin coming out of Bendix’s office in a panic.Marvin: It’s Bendix. He’s dead!

Everyone stands around looking shocked that the side kick baddie who had provided the poison and was no longer needed was now dead.. meh..[I think Marvin killed him! lol just kidding ]
Hey does it feel like I’m skipping bits and finding this pretty uninteresting? that’s because I am! Anyway, I’ll finish here for now – so what do you make of this part of the episode, or the episode so far? Anything you’d like to share? Bye for now!

Errr, ummm, errr….where are the screencaps of Lee falling down on top of Amanda? Did I miss them? Did you have to take them down, iwsod? Were they causing too much traffic to the blog? 😉 They’re even better than the backside of Lee in his jeans IMHO, of course 🙂

I am so glad you mentioned the room because I realised it was the same set. Cheapskates 😉
How lucky all that pesky debris from the bomb sailed all the way over their heads and missed them by a mile. I love how Lee even had time to push Amanda out of the way AND close the door. Some lightning reflexes there 😉
I reckon they should use the gel Lee uses on bullet proof vests…..if his hair can survive that explosion unscathed just think of the lives it could save…..

Okay, I have several questions, not necessarily looking for answers, but this episode just has so many holes. And I’m pretty sure there aren’t any real answers to the questions. So is it possible that Carla and her puppet Barry saw Lee coming from the lab and only suspect him, seeing as the bomb was only in Lee’s room and not Amanda’s? Did they even check her room later to see if it was ransacked or booby-trapped? Also, did they know exactly when Lee would walk into his room so the timer was set for his entrance? There is no wiring to the door for it to be activated that way. And it doesn’t look to be motion activated. I wouldn’t think Carla or Barry would be that adept at bomb-making. And if they suspect both Lee and Amanda did they assume Amanda would be joining Lee in his room, since like Lee’s room, that brother/sister cover has been blown to bits? And finally, if Lee is so insistent that Amanda pack and leave and she is in agreement, why did they not do so on they way to the lobby or do so before heading to MM-HQ? Just a few queries.

One other nit-picky thing. Amanda spent a lot of the first season talking about Lee’s rudeness and lack of manners. She also indicated that she would like some type of compliments for work well done. Even in the Magic Bus she indicates that Lee is being petty when he characterizes her work in much the same way she characterized his legs. She constantly supports him and compliments him, but when she finally does get compliments she becomes self-deprecating and almost lessens her own contributions. She makes it seem less than what it was or not that big of a deal. She says what she did was spur of the moment, while Lee says it was natural and then she changes the subject. I can understand being a bit shy about accolades, but why have her character at first seek validation and then later on discredit it when she gets it. Maybe I’m making a mountain out of a molehill, but I think it’s something that continues to happen.

Maybe that’s why it’s so hard sometimes to track Amanda’s growth and changes. Lee has made gradual changes and although he seems to falter and regress at times you can see his growth and he makes up for his regressing. Amanda was shown to have this great intuition and was solving or in the midst of solving case after case in the beginning and then she somehow became a ditz and then less of one. I’m trying to remember if I’ve ever cringed at some of Lee’s behaviors in the same way I’ve cringed at what they’ve had Amanda’s character sometimes say or do.

What I do like about this scene is Lee’s reaction when he notices the bomb, he immediately shows his concern for Amanda and is anxious to get her out of harm’s way. Love the rolling in the hallway during the explosion and how they cling to one another. Brother and sister, yeah, not so much….

I agree with you — I loved sassy early first season Amanda and was saddened by her descent into ditziness. If I remember correctly, KJ stepped in during production of season 3 and put her foot down and this is why we see Amanda’s rehabilitation for which I am eternally grateful.

Love this Valerie! I see this thought of how Amanda reacts to Lee’s compliment has really stimulated your thinking!!
See I love this about the blog.. I didn’t give it much thought.. but we are all different, and see different things or connect with different aspects of the characters or stories.

Very interesting ideas.. I sense an Amanda post in there Valerie! If you are so inspired – please go for it 🙂

Yes I agree with you and Cindy.. the ‘descent into ditziness’ as Cindy brilliantly put it is infuriating!!!

Regarding the bomb? I figured they got Bendix to quickly put the detonator in the C4 and then planted it in Lee’s room to go off – with him there or not.. either way – the aim may have been to scare him/them.. you know.. the ‘Stemsons!’ and if he got hurt well bonus! lol.. that’s the only explanation I can think of – because you are right there’s no trigger device.. and it’s really otherwise just a lame contrivance for a bit of Lee and Amanda rolling around in the hallway (as Claudia pointed out ha!)

So.. all very interesting thoughts about Amanda and her assertiveness to start with, and now her self-depreciation.
It didn’t bug me.. but why? You’ve got me thinking!

I think early Amanda, because of the relationship she had then with Lee was hungry for some acknowledgement. Anything.. When Balon tricked Amanda in Saviour – that has always stuck in my mind.. he read Amanda and her vulnerability back then like a book. Lee would not admit that he needed her, and she really needed him to acknowledge her contributions and to validate her involvement with the spy biz..

But now? she’s had plenty of validation from Lee, she’s no longer hungry for his acknowledgement – which I’m actually viewing as a real positive! I think not being so dependant on that is a sign that Amanda has grown up in her self belief..
Lastly, I don’t hear Amanda saying it’s not true that she did good.. (which is a big plus), she is just self-depreciating in the way she accepts this compliment. I’m thinking she isn’t fighting for her worth to be acknowledged anymore.. both Amanda and Lee by now have changed.. and her old feisty demand for recognition would no longer fit.
I don’t know.. you got me thinking! but I didn’t see her self-depreciation as rejecting his compliment, just being a bit shy and humble about it.. but this is just how I saw it.. What does everyone else think?

Really interesting this Valerie! so glad you raised this and stimulated my thinking 🙂

Oh and the whole intuition thing? don’t get me started on that little bug bear 😉 tee hee.. Bye!

I think I am of the same mind about Amanda here as you are, Iwsod. At this stage Amanda doesn’t need validation from Lee and she is getting the full on effect of his attention in many ways as well. I think Amanda is the kind of person who is good at complimenting others but she has never been good at receiving one (not many people are). There have been times in the past when Lee’s compliments haven’t always been genuine, he has used compliments to get her to do something he wants her to do. This time his compliment feels like a real one, plain and simple and I think Amanda can sense that. That is what I notice in this scene and I think it is another morsel of that food for thought that Amanda is chewing on.

As for plot holes… ah, well, I give it a pass. I can’t wait to play with their thoughts as the think about how the lay all wrapped up together on the floor of the hallway like that…

I can see what you’re saying, Iwsod, about Amanda’s changing need for validation in the job she’s doing. You could really see some of her self-doubt in Brunettes and how she worked through that with and without Lee. She has found something that suits her, has made her feel alive, and is making her proud of who she is and what she can do. And yes, she has gained more confidence and comfort with the job as time has progressed. She has a few tense moments in OTL with being introduced to the shooting range and then doing a stakeout on her own. She even mentioned that she was out of her element.

Maybe she has started to accept that she has been accepted and what she is doing is just all part of the job she’s been trying to do all along. I’m going to continue to keep my eye out to see how she handles further compliments. I’m going to go back and check out LOTP again. Lee was pretty much gushing about how well Amanda handled herself in that situation.

I don’t remember any cringe-worthy behavior on Lee’s part either – at least not up till this point in the show. He just gets all the cheesy lines. JEG – squeeze Ameriaca’s secrets like toothpaste from a tube or in FTF – drop anchor, you’re drifting…there are tons more!

Nice analysis Iwsod and good catch with the wrecked room being the same set as used earlier in the episode.

Ka-BOOM! Look at all that deadly schrapnel…err, I mean, feather soft debris because there ain’t a scratch on either one of them. In fact, not a hair out of place. 😉 PS. Just exactly how much of the product did you use this morning, Stetson?

I figure that by the time we see L&A walking in the hotel lobby, some time – may be an hour or two has passed. No doubt the hotel management noticed the large explosion in one of their rooms and had some questions to ask, and I imagine the police were probably involved as well. So L&A had to stick around to answer some questions. Lee probably handed the vial off to Francine before they had their interview with the police. (The real police, not the fashion police 😎 although Lee’s seriously in danger of being taken in for questioning on that score too! Concentrate on the jeans, kiwismh, the jeans… )

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